MLSE itself was taken over by new ownership in Oct. 2012, so we might just be starting to see the fruits of that change. Regardless, in the context of this thread (ie. ownership willing to take financial risk for on-field success) MLSE has always been among the league leaders, IMO. The failure has been in execution, and we'll see very shortly whether that's improved.
Well, apparently we can scratch Vergara off that list. http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2014/02/20/major-league-soccer-purchases-chivas-usa
It took me a few minutes to get this. But with only one year (hopefully) they won't have enough time to pass some of the 'leaders'.
Nice thread bump. Please add the Union towards the top of worst owner list. No money and no ambition.
Random note on the original post: It's common to say that Salt Lake is much smaller than other markets. The municipality itself is rather small, with fewer than 200,000 residents. The MSA is also small, with only 1.2M people. However, both of these definitions are extremely narrow; the Salt Lake MSA includes only two counties. By comparison, the MSAs for Columbus (850K city, 2.0M MSA) and Kansas City (480K city, 2.1M MSA) have ten and fourteen counties. When comparing primary statistical areas, the Salt Lake area includes Provo and Ogden, and is slightly larger than the other two; by media market, Salt Lake has slightly fewer households, but is within 5,000 of the other two. As a market, Vancouver is similarly-sized as well. These four markets are similar to one another, but significantly smaller than Portland, Orlando, and Denver, which are currently the next smallest tier when analyzing several measures of size together, rather than running down a single list.
With Toronto, it was never for lack of trying and they marketed the hell out of that team. The fact that they could start winning again and the fans can actually come back and fill an even bigger stadium shows that. The truly inept ownerships can win all they want and their markets still don't even know that they exist. So TFC is definitely in my top 5-10. They made mistakes but they built a strong brand even when they were losing. That's a hell of a thing there. So to the OP, good thread that's why I repped,... way off base on TFC. Probably the biggest error there. 15to32 nails it. You were using a completely different metric by which to judge TFC which is completely unfair and, especially in hindsight now, inaccurate. With all of the money that they threw behind each iteration of management, they were going to start winning eventually and the fans would come back because they actually gave a shit about more than just owning the team, they wanted the team to be something special. And they continued to market the team, even when losing. They kept them in the public eye and didn't let the brand stagnate to the point that they could start winning a la FCD, and noone there would even know that they existed anymore.
This was never going to happen. I can't remember who AEG originally owned, I think it was Colorado, but when they ended up with LA Galaxy on their hands, it was always obvious who the last team that they would hold would be. What Chicago is suffering from is the same thing alot of the original MLS teams are dealing with. MLS had to divest ownership in order to achieve stable footing, but they were doing so during a time period in which MLS 1.0 was still trying to become 2.0, so to speak. So there weren't alot of really vested and impressively wealthy investors banging down their doors to own these teams. Most of those guys wanted to start new teams, build newer stadiums, and put them where they wanted them to be. The guys who bought out original teams mostly had to be recruited. Even Philly's owner was recruited to serve a fanbase that wanted a team at the time. Those owners have since done very little to grow the initial enthusiasm. It's easy to tell an owner who wants to be in this league from one who wants to hold down a franchise because it's a nice asset on his/her/their portfolio.
Should also be noted when Lieweke came in the ticket prices dropped to season 1 pricing folowwing year after year of constent hikes despite losing seasons. Of course the writing was on the wall that it needed to be done as many supporters were being priced out and many who could afford chose not to renew or go to games to watch TFC play bad and lose. MLSE is putting money where their money is, hopefully it continues.
TFC's #1 problem was always just managerial competency - which has largely been resolved the past few years. They built a stadium in a central location in the city. They paid what it took to tear out the turf and put in a state-of-the-art grass field. They paid more money again, to upgrade the stadium for more seating. They've got an Academy system/infrastructure that is easily in the running for best in the league, and a great training facility. And of course, that's before you get to what they are spending on players... MLSE has never been shy about spending money on the team, and investing in it. The problem was that they appointed people who didn't really know what they were doing - but even then, they tried to bring in expensive consultants like Klinsmann to try and tell them how to fix it. They've since stepped back; found good, competent people to run their teams, and then stayed out of their way. Bezbatchenko and Manning are doing a good job with TFC. Shanahan, Lamoriello and Babcock have transformed the Leafs. Ujiri with the Raptors. They've got competent leadership to back up their money, at long last.